It was a scene no father wants to witness, and Tim McConnell had a courtside view.

A little more than four months ago, the Chartiers Valley High School coach stood and watched as his son and starting guard, T.J., drove to the basket like he had thousands of times in the past. On this occasion, though, the younger McConnell's legs were clipped by an opposing player while going up for a shot, and he tried to catch himself as he fell to the court. Seconds later, T.J. lay on the floor writhing in pain, with he and his father both well aware his sophomore season had all but ended with a serious left arm injury.

"I can't even look at that stuff because I get very nauseated. But once I saw it dangling, I knew it was bad," Tim McConnell said.

But as quickly as T.J. McConnell tumbled to the ground with a broken arm that mid-February afternoon, his health and basketball talent have ascended back to the level that has him pegged as one of the top juniors in the WPIAL.

Before coming full circle, however, McConnell was forced to withstand the pain from two different sources -- his arm itself, and the fact he would be absent from a game which has basically become a way of life for himself and his basketball-crazed family.

McConnell initially was injured in the Colts final regular-season game, a 62-59 section-title clinching win against Keystone Oaks. Thinking it was just a sprained wrist, he sat out of practice for a week, and returned and battled some pain in a WPIAL Class AAA opening-round playoff win against Mount Pleasant. But against Steel Valley in the quarterfinals, that pain escalated to a different tier with the fall which shattered his ulna and fractured his radius, bones that stretch from the elbow to the wrist.

Three days later, McConnell had surgery, and plates and screws were inserted into his forearm. The recovery time was set at about three months, but since the injury was to his non-shooting arm, he was able to resume light work two weeks early. On May 13, exactly three months after suffering the break, McConnell was cleared to play. In fact, he played that night as the Colts opened summer league action against North Hills.

"It felt incredible," T.J. McConnell said. "I hated sitting there and not being able to play."

When coming back from such an injury, it takes many athletes a period of time to become comfortable again. Some are tentative and going less than full speed, potentially setting themselves up for another injury. Not McConnell. In no time, he was chasing after loose balls and diving on the floor.

"After the first couple of games, a few of the assistants said to me, 'You would have never known he was out for three months. It's the same old T.J.," said Tim McConnell.

Now back in the swing of things, T.J. McConnell is aggressively working on adding some new wrinkles to his game, including doing a better job of taking opponents off the dribble and creating his own shot. He averaged 19.5 points a game as a sophomore, displaying pin-point marksmanship by connecting on 94 3-point shots and 92.6 percent of his free throw attempts.

Eyebrows raised when Duquesne University offered McConnell a scholarship last summer when he was just 5-foot-8, 125 pounds. Since then, McConnell has added some weight and now stands just a shade under 5-11, and his verbal commitment to coach Ron Everhart and the Dukes remains firm.

"I don't care if Pitt, North Carolina and Duke all come in and offer tomorrow. He's going to Duquesne," Tim McConnell said.

T.J. McConnell still has a pair of high school seasons left to focus on. The Colts return all but one player from last year's squad which went 24-4, and a now-healthy T.J. McConnell appears poised to lead the way.

"Just because I broke my wrist doesn't mean I'm going to lay back," he said. "I'm going to go 100 percent like I always do."